Malaysia Airlines Will Be 1st In The World To Adopt Satellite Tracking For Its Flights By 2018

Malaysia Airlines has become the first airline operator in the world to initiate an agreement to track its flights from space.

The airlines was the victim of a tragic event three years ago, when it lost a jet with 239 people on board, in one of the most mysterious accidents in aviation history. Now, Malaysia Airlines has signed an agreement with Aireon, SITAONAIR and FlightAware, that will enable it to monitor its aircraft flight paths in real time anywhere in the world.

Aireon, a space-based air traffic surveillance group, is on the verge of launching a new satellite network in partnership with Iridium Communications which will let it track aircraft around the world, including over the polar regions and the most remote expanses of ocean. It uses something called Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS–B), and the project is expected to complete in 2018.

“Real-time global aircraft tracking has long been a goal of the aviation community,” Malaysia Airlines Chief Operating Officer Izham Ismail said in the release. “We are proud to be the first airline to adopt this solution.”

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, when it abruptly turned around to fly back across Malaysia and then diverted towards the open expanses of the Indian Ocean. Despite extensive searches finally turning up debris from the plan washing up on African shores, the main wreckage and passengers (living or dead) were never located.

The era of satellite flight tracking takes off

It’s not clear, however, whether Aireon’s tracking technology would have made a difference in the incident; MH 370’s location transmitter went offline during the course of events, and it’s still unsure whether the device was intentionally turned off or malfunctioned. In such a case, ADS-B would likely be rendered useless, as the lack of a transmitter would effectively render the aircraft invisible to the network, and flying over the deepest parts of the ocean would mean a lack of radar monitoring in the local airspace.

FlightAware Satellite Map Of Flights

However, this is a first step towards more secure aviation standards in the future, something that's been long overdue. Perhaps we may even be able to look forward to airlines plugging in the likes of Google subsidiary Terra Bella, which uses satellite imaging to gather and analyse data patterns to help solve issues like housing and energy shortages. We could see this kind of satellite imaging in the future transcend to a live video feed stage, allowing airlines to manually “look in” on their aircraft, regardless of a working transmitter on board.